Beaming with virtue inaccessible Stood Egilona; for her lord she lived, And for the heavens that raised her sphere so high: All thoughts were on her—all beside her own. Negligent as the blossoms of the field, Arrayed in candour and simplicity, Before her path she heard the streams of joy Murmur her name in all their cadences, Saw them in every scene, in light, in shade, Reflect her image; but acknowledged them Hers most complete when flowing from her most. All things in want of her, herself of none, Pomp and dominion lay beneath her feet Unfelt and unregarded: now behold The earthly passions war against the heavenly! Pride against love; ambition and revenge Against devotion and compliancy— Her glorious beams adversity hath blunted, And coming nearer to our quiet view, The original clay of coarse mortality Hardens and flaws around her. * * * * * _One day of bitter and severe delight._—VI. p. 60. I have ventured to borrow this expression from the tragedy of Count Julian. Nothing can be finer than the passage in which it occurs. _Abdalazis._ Thou lovest still thy country? _Julian._ Abdalazis, All men with human feelings love their country. Not the high-born or wealthy man alone, Who looks upon his children, each one led By its gay hand-maid, from the high alcove, And hears them once a-day; not only he Who hath forgotten, when his guest inquires The name of some far village all his own; Whose rivers bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last cloud upon the level sky: No; better men still better love their country. ’Tis the old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence, or perfidy, invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with a bitter and severe delight. * * * * * _Restoring in thy native line, O Prince, The sceptre to the Spaniard._—VII. p. 71. This was a favourite opinion of Garibays, himself a Biscayan, but he has little better proof for it than the fact, that Gothic names disappeared with Roderick, and that Pelayo and his successors drew their nomenclature from a different stock. He says, indeed, that ancient writings are not wanting to support his opinion. Some rude commentator has written against this assertion in the margin of my copy, _miente Garibay_; and I am afraid the commentator is the truer man of the two.